


Now Go Be Free, Spidey-Baby

by ashilrak



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Dissociation, Gen, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Using the Iron Man suits to cope
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-17
Updated: 2020-05-17
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:54:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24234625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ashilrak/pseuds/ashilrak
Summary: "It had been a rough night. The sort of night that had Peter closing his bedroom window behind him at three in the morning because he couldn’t sleep. The sort of night that had him texting Mr. Stark to see if he was awake.Mr. Stark was usually awake.Peter got it. He knew Mr. Stark got it. Which is why he went to Mr. Stark."
Comments: 2
Kudos: 56





	Now Go Be Free, Spidey-Baby

It had been a rough night. The sort of night that had Peter closing his bedroom window behind him at three in the morning because he couldn’t sleep. The sort of night that had him texting Mr. Stark to see if he was awake.

Mr. Stark was usually awake.

Peter got it. He knew Mr. Stark got it. Which is why he went to Mr. Stark.

“Karen,” he said, as soon as the window clicked shut. “Can you tell Aunt May I’ll be staying at the tower? I’ll text her again before school.”

May didn’t love it, but she got it. She didn’t like that it was Tony Stark of all people that she turned to. Didn’t understand why he did it, but accepted it. 

His mask protected his face from getting chafed from the wind, but the rush of cold air as he swung through the city helped to soothe frazzled nerves.

He didn’t even know why he was so bothered tonight. It happened sometimes, but usually Peter could pinpoint a reason. Today, he had nothing. There weren’t even any exams or quizzes coming up at school. It was just him.

That’s what Mr. Stark got that May didn’t. 

May was the best when it came to being stressed out about normal stuff. Could make him hot chocolate - the cheap powdered kind she’d get from the bodega, comforting in its familiarity - and just sit with him. Aunt May worried a lot. And she talked, a lot. But sometimes, she knew when all she needed to do was sit next to him on the sofa and sip some hot cocoa. 

Sometimes the cocoa wasn’t enough. Sometimes it wasn’t a pressure as much as a restless, frantic energy. The need to move, do something, create some sort of reaction in the world. The sort of panic that had him pushing against anything he could.

That’s what Mr. Stark got. Mr. Stark would see his wide eyes and pale skin and give him something to tinker with or something to blow up. Mr. Stark would offer him a grin and tell FRIDAY to record the results, said it was testing equipment and whatever else Mr. Stark was working on for the Avengers.

Today, Peter swung through the window that Karen messaged FRIDAY to open and let out a deep breath. 

The floor he was on was empty - one of the lab floors. A bit below Mr. Stark’s workshop. It was the easiest floor for him to consistently swing into. Mr. Stark had made a comment about changing floor protocols. Peter hadn’t been paying too much attention. He just knew that this floor was almost always empty at night. 

“Hello Peter,” FRIDAY’s voice greeted him. It had taken Peter forever to get her to call him Peter and not Mr. Parker. “Boss is in his workshop.”

An elevator opened, and mere moments later, Peter walked into Tony’s workshop.

Something relaxed within him the second he stepped forward. It wasn’t well-lit tonight, the lighting centered in the corner where Mr. Stark was staring at one of the holoscreens with a weird expression on his face. Music was playing faintly, but the sound of the pen Mr. Stark was clicking in his hand was louder.

Even just being near someone doing something helped. Not enough, but a bit. 

“Hey kid,” Mr. Stark said, eyes not leaving the monitor. “What’s up?” 

At first, Mr. Stark’s distant manner had been…rough. Hard to deal with. Foreign. Peter hadn’t known quite where to sort Mr. Stark in his brain. He was distant, both more and less so than his teachers in school. Tended to stay hands off, but when he did get involved, he got invested more than anyone but May. 

He didn’t do emotions like May. Wasn’t the same guiding hand that Ben had been.

He was just Mr. Stark. And that was enough. It was familiar now, reliable.

“Couldn’t sleep,” Peter said, eyes darting over to the table he usually occupied. It was empty. That was new.

Mr. Stark clicked the pen twice. 

“Wanna blow something up?” he asked, still looking at the monitor.

Peter shook his head. “No.” 

He didn’t think so. It wasn’t that same sort of frantic. He just was buzzing, his hands twitching. Not the sort of thing that could be solved with an explosion. 

He had thought tonight was a tinkering night. But stepping into the workshop had made it clear that it was not. He didn’t know what it was.

He needed the Aunt May approach, but more. Not comfort, but...pressure. Something that forced him to just  _ be _ . Move or hold still, he didn’t know. He just felt disconnected somehow. 

Mr. Stark looked over at him, but Peter barely noticed. 

“Kid,” Mr. Stark said. “Whattaya thinking then?”

Peter still didn’t say anything, barely heard him. 

He very vaguely heard shuffling amongst the other various workshop noises. 

A warm hand on his shoulder startles him enough that he allows himself to be pushed forward. 

“So,” Mr. Stark said. It was an unfamiliar tone. In anyone else, Peter might have called it a weird combination of resigned and cautious. “I think you’re dissociating. Or something. I’m not sure. I do it, sometimes.”

Mr. Stark was guiding him to the back of the workshop where he worked on his suits. 

“I find, that...well, I have no idea if this is going to work for you,” Mr. Stark said, voice getting tighter. “But it helps me.”

Mr. Stark turned him around and backed him up. “Step up.” 

Peter did. He backed into something incredibly sturdy, surrounding his back and sides. Mr. Stark moved his hands down to Peter’s elbows and guided his arms so that soon they were where they needed to be. Peter felt...comforted. More aware of Mr. Stark’s eyes on him.

“Now,” Mr. Stark said, eyes drilling into Peter’s own, or rather, the mask’s. On any other occasion, Peter might have shrunk under his gaze. “You’re in your suit. You have Karen. She’ll connect to FRIDAY as soon as you’re settled in, but you’ll interface with Karen. You’re not going to be able to do much.”

Mr. Stark paused.

Peter nodded, only half-absorbing the words.

“You’re not biometrically keyed in. You couldn’t do anything if you wanted to.” Mr. Stark paused again.

Peter nodded. Again. 

“I’ll be watching you vitals. The moment you tell Karen to let you out or your vitals indicate to myself or Karen that you need out, I’ll be right here.” 

Mr. Stark bit his lip, looking as if he was considering something. He sighed. 

“This might be the worst thing, but for me? It helps. Of course,” Mr. Stark let out a shallow laugh. “My relationship with the suits could probably fuel at least five psych dissertations.”

In any other circumstance, Peter would be freaking out right now. 

Mr. Stark nodded, mostly to himself. “Just, sit back. I’ll be watching you, like I said. It’s fine if you fall asleep.”

And with that, Mr. Stark took a step back and the comforting pressure at his shoulders and back spread over his front.

He was...surrounded. 

Peter flexed his hand. It felt...different. Slower, heavier. Like something was holding him in place and moving with him at the same time. There was space around his chest, but everything else was snug. He was held firmly in place.

The only thing he could really move was his hands.

It should feel suffocating. But it didn’t. It felt…

Safe. He felt safe.

He was standing but was fully supported. Free to just, exist. 

The buzzing under his skin slowly faded. It was just him. He was Peter Parker. Breath in. Breath out. 

Breath in. Breath out.

\---

“Peter,” Karen said, softer than normal.

“Karen?”   


“You are in the Mark XLVII in the workshop at the tower in Manhattan, New York.” she said. “It is currently 6:30 am on Thursday, April 14th.”

Peter blinked. The mask’s HUD showed nothing beyond what Karen was telling him. Just darkness.

“I, what?” Peter asked. “The Mark? I’m in a suit?!”

He was suddenly very aware of the feeling of something surrounding him. 

The night before came flashing back.

“Oh,” he breathed out. “That’s weird.”

Before he could begin to figure out how to get out of the suit, the suit opened up to reveal Mr. Stark in the same clothes from before holding a cup of coffee and smirking.

“I’m a genius.”

Peter blinked. “Well, yeah?”

Mr. Stark shook his head. “You fell asleep like ten minutes after I put you in the suit, and you didn’t seem to have any nightmares as far as I could tell. How are you feeling?”

Peter stepped out of the suit. 

God, that was weird. 

“Good, I guess?” Peter was tired, but not the sort of tired that came from nightmares. The sort of tired that accompanied a good night’s rest that didn’t last long enough. A nap when he needed sleep.

Mr. Stark nodded. “Now,” Mr. Stark gestured toward his suit. “You have school, so I’m assuming you need clothes.”

Right, the suit. The Spider-Man suit. Not the Iron Man suit.

He had taken a nap in an Iron Man suit. What even was his life.

“Now,” Mr. Stark started, taking a step back and motioning for Peter to follow. “You’ve caught me when I’m feeling particularly generous,” Mr. Stark lifted his brows. “As Pepper would say, we’re different shapes, but it’s not like you’re fashion-forward enough that you’ll care your t-shirt isn’t tailored.”

They were in the elevator, and Peter still hadn’t wrapped his mind around what was happening.

Mr. Stark kept talking. 

“-you’re only an inch shorter than me, so my college stuff probably would have fit you perfectly, come to think of it. Unfortunately for you, none of my college stuff survived through college, let alone through now.”

“Mr. Stark,” Peter interrupted.

They were walking through the penthouse now. “Keep up, kid.”

“Mr. Stark,” Peter tried again.

They walked through a door Peter had never noticed before, probably by design. “I own exclusively suits, old jeans, and old band shirts.” Mr. Stark opened a door to a closet larger than Peter’s entire room. “Have at it.”

Running on auto-pilot, Peter opened a random drawer and grabbed a grey t-shirt. It may have been black once. 

There was a hole in the chest. 

He held it up. “You know, being a gazillionaire, I thought you’d have replaced all these by now.”

Mr. Stark sniffed. 

“Do all of your shirts have holes in them?” Peter asked.

“Only the ones that the arc reactor wore through.”

Peter sighed. “And where might I find a shirt that the arc reactor has not worn through?”

He wasn’t sure how he’d explain that one. 

‘No Flash, I’m not homeless. This is actually Tony Stark’s old shirt. I told you I have an internship with him! Why don’t you believe me? Why yes, ripping a hole in a shirt in the same place as the arc reactor is obviously something a sane person would do.’

“Ungrateful is what you are.” 

It was cushioned by the fact that Mr. Stark turned around to go through the shirts hung up behind him.

Peter kept going through the drawers until he found Mr. Stark’s jeans. Jeans were normal. Even expensive jeans looked like jeans.

Peter did not doubt for a single second that every pair of jeans in front of him cost more than anything he had ever owned before in his life. Especially considering these looked new. Wherever Mr. Stark kept the jeans he wore in his workshop, these were not them. 

He took a deep breath and grabbed a pair to look at the size. Eh, an inch off, but close enough.

Peter lifted a hand to catch a shirt and sweater that Mr. Stark had thrown at him. 

“Nice catch.”

“Spidey-sense.”

Mr. Stark groaned. “Why do you call it that.”

Peter shrugged and grabbed a pair of jeans and shut the drawer. The shirt was light blue and the sweater was red. 

“Subtle isn’t really something you do, is it?” Peter asked instead of answering.

“Iron Man red, kid,” Mr. Stark said, grinning. “Don’t knock it ‘till you try it.”

“Uh-huh.”

Mr. Stark took a sip of his coffee. “I’m really regretting not agreeing to the Iron Man collection with Gucci. I could have had you all decked out. Pepper said we had more taste than that.”

Peter snorted. “She’s right, she does have more taste than that.”

He had no idea what the hell taste had to do with Gucci, but Ms. Potts was usually right.

Mr. Stark’s eyes narrowed. 

“But you really don’t need to do this,” Peter said before Mr. Stark could say anything. “I don’t need your clothes.”

“Are you wearing anything beneath the suit?” 

“Uh…” 

Mr. Stark snorted. “That’s what I thought.” He pointed at a door on the other side of the bedroom. “Bathroom’s through there. I’ll be in the kitchen.”

\---

Clean underwear, a belt, and toiletries had been waiting in the bathroom for him. Peter did not think about how they got there.

He walked out to the kitchen dressed in Mr. Stark’s clothes with damp hair and his Spider-Man suit bundled up in his hand.

“Thank you, Mr. Stark.”

Instead of saying anything, Mr. Stark pushed a plate of food over in his direction while doing something on his phone.

The clothes were comfortable. Comfortable to the point where they were almost uncomfortable. The fabric felt too nice. 

Peter pulled out his own phone. Notifications showed missed texts from May, unsurprisingly. 

**To: Aunt May  
** I’m at the tower. Getting ready for school. I’ll see you after school

He didn’t expect a response. May was at work.

A hand settled on his shoulder. “Alright kid,” Mr. Stark said. “We should be leaving here in the next ten minutes or so, at least that’s what FRIDAY says.”

Peter blinked. “We?”

Mr. Stark nodded. “Yep,” he said. “I was planning on heading up to the compound today anyway. If I leave now I can swing by your school and drop you off.”

Peter chewed on his toast, letting the words sink in. 

“You’re driving me to school?” Peter asked a second later.

Mr. Stark snagged a piece of bacon off his plate and took a bite. “Yep.”

It spoke to how tired he still was and that the situation hadn’t fully settled in that Peter just nodded.

\---

Mr. Stark drove through the city in the way only someone who had been reckless in their youth and never got out of the habit could. It didn’t help that Peter was all too aware of people taking pictures of the car with their phone.

This car was apparently STARK14, and just as obnoxious as any other one of the cars in Mr. Stark’s collection.

“Say,” Mr. Stark said. “Do you know how to drive?”

Peter startled. “Uh, no?”

He lived in New York. He didn’t need to know how to drive. May had a car, sure, but it wasn’t like she used it regularly. It had been Ben’s and she had never been able to bring herself to get rid of it.

Mr. Stark hummed, fingers tapping an unidentifiable pattern on the steering wheel.

“I’ll start teaching you this weekend. We’ll make your lab day a lab weekend.”

What?

“If I spend too much time at the tower Pepper starts getting on me about paperwork,” Mr. Stark faked a shudder. “If I spend too much time at the compound Cap starts talking to me.”

Peter had never figured out the whole Cap thing, and he had the feeling that he never would if Mr. Stark had his way.

He raised a brow and asked, “so your solution is to teach me to drive?”

Mr. Stark nodded. “Yep.” He popped the ‘p,’ because of course he did.

The not-so-sweet sound of AC/DC filled the silence between them.

**From: Ned**   
Where are you

Oh, right. He was usually at school by now. If he took the subway, he would have arrived a couple minutes ago (if both he and the train were on time). If he swung, he tended to need Ned’s help to cover him.

**To: Ned** **  
** On my way, I got a ride

He didn’t know how to begin to explain the whole Mr. Stark being his ride thing over text. He’d worry about that later. Actually, he hoped he didn’t need to worry about it at all. Hopefully, they’d pull up and no one would notice that Tony Stark was there. 

Mr. Stark tilted his chin in Peter’s direction. “Ted?”

Peter nodded. “Just asking where I was, I’m usually there by now.”

Mr. Stark hummed. 

A few minutes later, Peter made the terrible discovery that as annoying as it was to watch kids be dropped off by their parents, it was ten times worse being dropped off by a not-parent.

Peter groaned and banged his head against the headrest.

“What?” Mr. Stark asked.

Peter shook his head. “I really, really do appreciate you driving me and everything you’ve done today, Mr. Stark. Really, it’s great. Super amazing.” Peter could feel his cheeks flushing with embarrassment as the whole situation sunk in. “Like? Napping in the suit? Amazing, absolutely great. Really helped. Food? Clothes? Even better. I never would have asked you to do any of this, but-”

“Kid,” Mr. Stark cut him off. “What is it?”

“Nothing,” he said, sinking down into the seat.

“Peter.”

He took in a breath. “Everyone’s going to see,” he whispered.

Mr. Stark gave him a bewildered look. “See what?”

“You!” Peter said. “No one believes me that I have an internship at Stark Industries, and obviously Ned likes to ask me about it all the time so people hear him asking about you so it’s this whole thing where everyone thinks I’m lying about knowing you.” He took in a quick breath. “And sure, it’s kind of a lie, but it still sucks!”

God, he was sure his cheeks had never been warmer. This was actually a nightmare. And yet he couldn’t seem to do anything to stop it from happening.

Mr. Stark nodded.

A moment passed.

“So,” Mr. Stark started. “Wouldn’t me dropping you off prove that you know me?”

Peter shrugged. “Sure,” he agreed. “But who has their boss drop them off at school?!”

“I’m eccentric,” Mr. Stark offered. “I do what I want.”

Peter huffed out a breath.

Mr. Stark reached over to squeeze his shoulder. “It’ll be fine.”

“I guess.”

The grip on his shoulder tightened. “If there’s any problem, call me.”

Peter nodded, having no intention of ever calling Mr. Stark over something as stupid as people being assholes.

“Seriously,” Mr. Stark said. “Peter, look at me.” Peter looked over to see that Mr. Stark had taken off his sunglasses. “School sucks. I threw money at all my problems and then drank the ones that were left away.”

Peter’s face scrunched.

“I know,” Mr. Stark sighed. “This is a case of do as I say, not as I do.”

Was he being lectured by Tony Stark?

Peter was absolutely being lectured by Tony Stark while the cars behind them honked at them to hurry up.

“You do in fact work with me, the one and only Tony Stark,” Mr. Stark smiled and gestured toward himself. “I’m outfitting you with all new StarkTech so you can show it off.”

“Mr. Stark-”

“Nope,” Mr. Stark cut him off. “I’ve meant to do that for a while now, now I just have an Excuse. FRIDAY, get the kid set up, will you?”

“Yes, Boss.”

Mr. Stark turned back to him. “Now, the woman behind me looks like she’s about to get out of her car and murder me, and I feel like Iron Man would make even more of a scene.”

Peter nodded.

“Throw my name around,” Mr. Stark said. “I’ll call the school so the administration will back you up.”

“You don’t need to-”

“I know,” Mr. Stark said, the corner of his mouth quirking up. “But I will. Now, go kick some decathlon ass.” 

“That’s not-”

Mr. Stark leaned over to push the door open.

At least this time Peter knew not to go in for a hug.

“Now go be free, spidey-baby.”

Peter stepped out of the car to find Ned waiting for him, mouth hanging open.

“Dude,” Ned said, eyes going back and forth between him and Mr. Stark. “That’s-”

“Yep,” Peter said, slamming the door behind him. “It is.”

“What is your life man?”

Peter shrugged. He didn’t know either. But he did know that he felt a lot better than he did last night and that’s what mattered.

**From: Unknown Number  
** Happy picked up your bookbag and dropped it off at the office

**From: Unknown Number** **  
** Have a good day kid

Someone knocked into his shoulder. 

“You sure look snazzy,” MJ said, looking him up and down. “A bit patriotic for my taste.”

Peter ran a hand over his sweater. “Right.” 

MJ smiled. “You look good, loser.”

The blush was back, he knew it. But Peter couldn’t even be that mad about it.

**Author's Note:**

> Definitely a bit different from my normal fare, but why not?
> 
> Please feel free to reach out to me at my [tumblr](http://ashilrak.tumblr.com/)


End file.
